Friday, May 25, 2007

More trash talking

Following up on a post earlier this week about the city charging residents $60/year to participate in a yard waste pickup program which is essentially non-existent, i'd like to note this email sent out over the InterNeighborhood Council listserv yesterday:

On Wednesday May 23rd, City Manager Patrick Baker presented us with a letter dated December 18, 2006 from NCDENR (North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources) to Donald Long, Director of Durham's SWM, permitting Durham to transport solid and yard waste in the same truck from Durham's transfer station to Brunswick Waste Management Facility, LLC Landfill located in Brunswick, Virginia.

With all due respect, having permission from a bureaucrat in Raleigh to mix our yard waste and regular solid waste in a Virginia landfill is not the issue.

The issue is that the city of Durham still prohibits its residents from mixing yard and solid waste; the city of Durham charges its residents extra to have their yard waste picked up; and the city of Durham saw no need to mention the fact that its yard waste program had disappeared until a the N&O pointed it out to the public.

Nobody has yet to explain to me why i should be charged $60 a year to participate in a program that is essentially non-existent.

Suppose i'm a phone service subscriber, and i pay an extra $5 a month for a voice mail service. Now suppose that the phone company rolls voice mail into its basic package at no extra charge, but keeps collecting my $5 a month anyway. And doesn't tell me its changed the terms of its service. Don't you think i'm going to be pissed off? And imagine how pissed off i'd be if i didn't have the choice of switching phone service providers at my earliest opportunity.

If i want my yard waste picked up in the city of Durham, i have exactly one option. Many Durham residents don't even take that one option, instead figuring out ways to dump their yard waste illegally, making it someone else's problem. Those of us who pay for the service do so because it's the right thing to do.

Not charging us for a non-existent service is also the right thing to do.

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Since 1949, Durhamites have slept soundly, secure in the knowledge that, in our town, erection can be depended upon. Now, thanks to the power of the internets, we can spread that security all over the world.